


On Mortality

by odiko_ptino



Series: Modern AU [9]
Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hyacinthus (mentioned), Immortality, M/M, Phaethon (mentioned), Zeus (mentioned) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 10:56:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17021379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odiko_ptino/pseuds/odiko_ptino
Summary: Angst as the gods come to terms with the fact that Icarus will die someday.





	On Mortality

Apollo places one elegant finger in his book to mark the place and sighs softly as he looks over at where Icarus is napping on the couch, and Helios knows that Apollo’s picturing the kid dead.

It’s not as though it was some big secret that Icarus will die someday. To the contrary; the gods have known since the beginning – before the beginning, really. They’ve known, even before they were aware of Icarus’ reincarnation, that all mortals are now condemned to age and die. No more gifts of immortality for favorites. And to make it unquestionably final, even Zeus himself has followed this order.

At the time – this was a few decades after the spectacular debacle of the Trojan War – they’d all seen the sense in it, though a little sullenly. They had allowed the mortals to manipulate them into taking sides against each other, with consequences that had left a mark for quite a while. So the gates had been shut forever after that – Ganymede was the last human to be immortalized.

There were other rules, about the limits of their interaction with humans, but most pertinent to Apollo at this moment is the rule about Dead Mortals.

“He’s like, 23 or something,” Helios says without preamble. “And health care has improved since the old days, thanks to you. He’s not gonna die tomorrow.”

“He may as well,” Apollo replies, not bothering to deny he’s been fretting over it. “If he lives to 90 – a long time by mortal standards – that’s still less than seventy years. And he’d likely be infirm for the last twenty years. That’s hardly any time at all.”

“But it’s time. It’s not nothing.”

“It’s not enough.” 

Icarus shifts in his sleep, mumbling something incoherent and dropping one arm over the side of the couch. He really does look impossibly cute and vulnerable at the moment – all humans do. The gods are uniformly enamored with sleeping humans, the way all the drama and paltriness and misery drop from their faces, the way they shut down all awareness and agency and lie there, still and helpless.

In Helios’ case, the sight usually fills him with an urge to break out the markers and start drawing dicks on faces, or go get some shaving cream or a dish of warm water. But Apollo tends to go all mushy and tender when he sees shit like this, and sure enough, his eyes are going soft as he watches Icarus drooling onto the pillow. Then his eyes harden, and Helios groans inwardly.

“I’m going to talk to Zeus.”

“Nope.”

“I will.” Apollo stands up, taking a moment to brush invisible dust off his trousers and neaten his shirt. “This is ridiculous. It’s been centuries.”

“Apollo, don’t be an asshole. He’s been sticking to the damn rule too, so you know he’s not going to be interested in hearing your problems. You need to drop this. Don’t end up wasting a bunch of your time re-opening a closed issue. Zeus’ll say no anyway and by the time you’ve lost the argument, Mop-Head’ll be dead and you’re gonna be even more miserable.”

At a glance, it does seem ludicrous that Helios of all people, should be the mature one about this. But people are always making this mistake about the two of them. They think that because Apollo is so elegant and calm and flowery most of the time, and has such a soft speaking voice, that he isn’t capable of throwing a nuclear-level tantrum like a giant damn baby when he’s upset about something. Even the people who should know better – like everyone who was at the trial, after his son died? Did they somehow forget what he’s like when he’s pissed off? 

The kid artfully combines righteousness and pettiness with maximum wrathful results. Truly a chip off the old block – maybe more so than any other of Zeus’ sons. He does it when he’s angry, he does it when he’s sad. And he’s warming up to be pretty fucking both right now.

“Perhaps no one’s presented a convincing enough reason for him to change his mind. Maybe Titans and the First Gods can forget about mortals after a day or so, but some of the rest of us want to keep them around.” His eyes are starting to glow and Helios finally stands up, stepping over to Apollo, every inch of him emanating ancient power in spite of his youthful form.

“Listen, brat, first of all, don’t even fucking dare imply that I don’t give a shit. Just because I don’t have my head up my ass living in some fantasy world where no laws apply – this is reality, fuckhead. And part of that reality is that the kid’s gonna die someday because Zeus is not gonna change his mind. In fact,” he cuts off whatever rejoinder Apollo was about to say, “… I’m pretty sure Zeus would kill Icarus himself just to prove a point to you and keep you from getting ideas above your station. Is that what you want?”

This draws Apollo up short, though he isn’t quite ready to let go of his anger yet. “You’re a Titan. You’re older than him, you have influence-“

The reason Helios has any influence at all with Zeus, and the reason he’s still alive when so many of his cousins are dead, is because Helios picks his battles very carefully, rather than charging in like some Ares-style berserker. “Not gonna happen. And if I have to, I will stop you from approaching him with this.”

Apollo’s eyes are burning. So are Helios’. “Is that so.”

“Yeah, it’s so.”

The sound of the apartment door opening interrupts them both and they look over.

Icarus flinches but doesn’t otherwise react. “It’s like the inside of a volcano in here. Kinda hard to sleep through it.”

The gods both look slightly abashed. “Oh. Uh, sorry bout that, Mop-Head,” Helios mutters. 

Icarus shrugs dully. “Who needs sleep anyway, right? I’ll just go to class early.” He checks his watch and rolls his eyes. “Really early.”

“You don’t need to. We’ll keep ourselves calm now,” Apollo tries.

“Yeah, no thanks.” The undertone of bitterness and despair, which always seem to tinge Icarus’ voice, is back. “Just try not to completely destroy the apartment? I need someplace to live. And I mean, it seems stupid to get into a fight over a guy when you were happy enough to let me die the first time.”

The door shuts on silence and a suddenly-cold apartment.

——————

Icarus trudges through the darkened streets. It’s really far, far to early for him to get to class, but the smaller library on the far side of campus is open 24/7 and they allow coffee in the reading rooms. If nothing else, he can get a nap in at one of the tables there – it’s more likely to be restful in the library than in his own apartment, apparently.

The really stupid thing about the gods arguing over making him immortal, is they didn’t even ask Icarus. They never do. The gods just tear through his life without any care for what he wants – and that’s how they’ve always been, isn’t it? Even in the old myths. The gods take. Sometimes the mortals get something out of it, sometimes they don’t; it’s irrelevant to the point. The gods take. Even Icarus’ first life, apparently, only amounted to a few laughs in the end, at the gullible idiot mortal who thought he was worth something to the gods. Who wants to spend eternity with that?

Although, Icarus thinks tiredly, as he crosses a street and heads down a back alley: Icarus isn’t sure what he’d say if he was offered immortality. There are days when it doesn’t seem worth it to suffer through seventy more years, let alone eternity.

———————–

They don’t apologize, not really, but the fight is over. They just.. fall back in together. They’ve worked and lived together for so long that it’s inevitable. They stand wordlessly, side by side, watching Icarus from far in the sky as he drags himself through the streets.

“He could die tomorrow,” Apollo says after a while. “We can plan to have years and years, but he could be struck by a vehicle tomorrow. Zephyrus could come by and harm him. He might be bitten by a snake. Hyacinthus-“ he pauses here to collect himself. “Hyacinthus and I thought we would have years.”

“Yeah. I know. I figured I’d have more than an hour with Phaethon.” 

“Oh – of course.”

“Zeus killed him in front of me. I promise you he won’t back down just because we think Icarus is cute.”

They both fall into silence again. Then, after a few minutes, Apollo points down to earth.

“I suppose we can at least do our best to make sure he makes it to 90,” he says, smirking mirthlessly as a few gritty-looking young men perk up as they see the soft, innocent-looking Icarus entering their territory. 

“Right,” Helios grins savagely and cracks his knuckles. “That part can even be fun, I think.”


End file.
